Monthly Archives: May 2011

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Spinning off from today’s story about sizing up how the Dodgers are attracting some 7,000 fewer fans per game this year after 25 dates compared to last year (linked here), some other things to note:

== More from David Carter, the executive director of the USC Sports Business Institute, a professor of sports business at the school, and principal of the Sports Business Group, which provides stragetic marking and business development services to the sports industry:

“The (Dodgers) brand will get them through this. The corporate sponsors will let this pass and know it can turn around with new ownership, and they don’t want to be on the outside when it happens. You have to be careful when you give up seats now.

“Still, you can’t turn on the news and constantly hear the drip of bad news. Women and mothers are big in making purchase decisions. When they’re asked to go to the game, I sense that the response is more, ‘Naw, let’s wait it out.’ That response is a real chllange going forward. Now kids aren’t coming out.

“Once the MLB comes in and new owners come, people will return to being faithful fans like you’ve never seen before and believe that happy days are here again. That’ll also give the new owners too much initial credit. Until they finish in fourth place.”

== More from Tom Leykis:

“I had my season seats a year but I didn’t go. I had them mostly to give to people or sell them off. But there was very little demand for them. When the team now is constantly offering deals and packages to get people to come, that’s a sign that the demand is soft. Just check StubHub — on any given night, they’ll have the $12 top-deck seats for $1. Sometimes the reserved seats are a low as $3-$4. Those are people who bought season-seat plans and tried to sell them at face value but now they’re down to nothing.

“The economic factors are big. The parking prices have hit people hard. Some day they’re now trying to charge $16 for some high-end beer. We’re not talking about this being the Lakers with half the home dates and more championships. Go back to the O’Malley days when, in good times and bad, it was always affordable.

“I finally let my season seats go (see Leykis’ blog posting on his back-and-forth with the Dodgers’ ticket department). When I first came to L.A. to live in 1988, the year of the Kirk Gibson home run, prior to that I was in Phoenix and Miami, and neither had a major-league team. I hadn’t lived in a major-league city, so the first thing I did when I got here was call about season seats and the woman laughed me off the phone. ‘Are you kidding? There’s a waiting list.’ And the Dodgers won the World Series and everyone was delirous. I got tickets in the early ’90s in the reserved section and went to a lot of games, but when they got rid of Mike Piazza, I was out. I took the money I saved on seats and got DirecTV. That was all the Fox ownership back then.

“But last year, when I had the season seats, there wasn’t even a demand for any of the home games against the Yankees. I couldn’t even sell them at face value. I lost money having seats last year.”

As the Dodgers’ payroll department grinds toward a deadline to see if there’s anything left to cut end-of-the-month checks, a not-so-quirky thing is happening at Dodger Stadium.

Fans don’t appear to be buying in.

The Dodgers may be averaging a respectable 36,360 a game after 25 home dates, but it’s only ninth best in all of baseball, and they’re the only team in the top 10 that isn’t filling at least 75 percent of the stadium each night. In a 56,000-seat facility, they’re only filling it at about 65 percent rate.

Compared to the 2010 season, the Dodgers’ official attendance deficit thus far is more than 7,100 paid per game – the greatest drop for any of the 30 big-league teams (12 of which have actually seen increases). The Dodgers have dragged the overall MLB attendance average to where it would actually be about break even from a year ago rather than down by about 200 fans per game across the board through May 25.
Season seats sales, which once were capped to allow walk-up sales, are reportedly down from 27,000 to about 17,000.

Here is the BaseballReference.com comparisons of the 2011 season to the 2010 season in attendance (linked here).

And while tickets sold are the only figures reported, the tally of no-shows, which aren’t calculated for public consumption, can be guestimated at some 5,000-to-10,000 per contest.

As a three-game weekend series starts Friday night against Florida with another fireworks promotion, the Dodgers could reach 1 million paid by Monday’s Memorial Day contest against Colorado. But they’d still remain on pace to have their first sub-3 million season since the aftertaste of the 1994-’95 players strike, ending a streak of 14 consecutive seasons.

The Frank and Jamie McCourt backlash to their public divorce, where court documents revealed plans of cutting payroll and increasing ticket prices to go along with other unscrupulous business practices, sits uncomfortably at the top of the list of reasons why many frustrated fans are staying away.

Having to see police with guns in holsters milling around the park, trying to quell any safety issues, doesn’t add to the stadium ambiance.

Factor in the quality of play on the field, the lack of star power, the economy, the fact schools are still in session and the usual competition from the Lakers. It’s a darn good laundry list of excuses as to why the numbers stack up as they do.

Is it any one of them over another?

“I think it’s a culmination of all of them at a time when people are fed up and can choose do to do many other things,” said David Carter, the executive director of the USC Sports Business Institute, a professor of sports business at the school, and principal of the Sports Business Group, which provides stragetic marking and business development services to the sports industry.

“Analyzing attendance figures are interesting, but it might be more ceremonial than the other business indicators that are out there.

“Sure, empty seats don’t buy Dodger Dogs or impress advertisers or sponsors or the media, but it’s really a backstory of a perception that creates more of a challenge for the team to overcome.”

Television ratings for games on Prime Ticket and KCAL-Channel 9 have actually held steady from last year to this season – an indicator that fans have maintained interest, but are just waiting to see if MLB takes over and orchestrates the sale to a new owner.

“I watch every game – on TV,” said Tom Leykis, the former FM-radio shock jock who owned Dodgers field-level season seats until he didn’t renew last year when he realized he couldn’t even give them away free to friends anymore.

“Sometimes, I feel as if I’m literally the only one watching. When you watch a game and see all the empty seats – no matter what camera angle they use – and it looks like nobody’s going, then no one wants to go. You’d think by now they’d at least hire out-of-work actors as seat fillers like they do at the Grammy Awards. It just looks bad.

“Listen, I’m not enjoying any of this. I want Dodger Stadium to be a fun place. It’s such a great moment to go out to Opening Day every year. But it’s just gone downhill. I don’t want to see Dodger Stadium as the object of ridicule. And I don’t want to ridicule it. But until people stop spending, things will only get worse. There was a time when I didn’t care if the team was winning or losing, you just like to sit in the stadium and have a beer. That’s the way I felt about it. It was the experience. But when Dodger Stadium turned into Clockwork Orange, I’m sitting at home and listening to Vin Scully.”

Compare that to Los Angeles’ other team, the barely above-.500 Angels, averaging 38,834 a game, fourth best in the game. They could outdraw the Dodgers in home attendance for the first time ever – that goes back to the Angels’ creation 50 years ago.
Considering that in 2009, the Dodgers led all of baseball in paying customers with 3,761,653, an average of 46,440, filling the stadium at about 80 percent each game, today’s state of affairs lead to a variety of theories.

The line of least resistance should start with the most obvious.

== The McCourt jesters:

All the recent damage-control measures by Frank McCourt to tell everyone he’s recommitted to keeping the team, paying bills, and rectifying any mistakes he’s made in the past might be moot at this point.

Too many postings on Dodger fans sites, or calls into the “DodgerTalk” post-game radio shows, cite the McCourt factor as the reason they’ve decided to take a break from going out to games.

“Fans are tired of all the mess and they are not willing to spend their money to support McCourt,” said Roberto Baly, editor of the VinScullyIsMyHomeboy.com blog. “I do believe there is a McCourt boycott. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s thousands of fans that are boycotting. And the team performance on the field kinda goes to the McCourt boycott. Most feel that the team is struggling because McCourt didn’t put a great team this season because he lacked the sources.”

Leykis said the release of information in the McCourt divorce papers about how their sons were being paid and how they avoided paying income taxes, more than anything was the last straw for many.

“Why should I invest money into that?” he said. “When you read about all their future plans, and no one has denied any of that, you see that all they cared about were themselves.

“There’s no doubt that Dodgers fans are voting with their feet.”

Now, it’s payback time.

== The Bryan Stow aftermath:

The Dodgers-Giants’ four-game series to start 2011 averaged more than 48,000 tickets sold, even as the news began to circulate about how Stow, the Giants’ fan, suffered a severe attack in the Dodger Stadium parking lot after Opening Day.

When the Giants came back to play two games at Dodger Stadium on April 18-19, the average was down by about 14,000 per game.

“The ballpark used to be a safe haven where you could take your kids, but I have noticed in my area a lot of unsavory characters in the past few years,” said John Utley, a Manhattan Beach resident who shares his season seats on the loge level near third base with seven other partners. “The last game we went to, it felt like being at a Raiders game. Even with the LAPD everywhere, a lot of guys spend the whole game drinking, and you notice by the third inning that the tone starts to change.”

Leykis, who is finalizing a deal that will officially recognize his $50,000 contribution to the reward money offered by the Los Angeles Police Department for information that leads to the capture of the two prime suspects in the beating, calls the Stow attack something that “accelerated a trend that had already existed.”

Says Baly: “Many of my friends don’t like the huge LAPD presence. They say they feel uncomfortable or it takes the joy out of the game. I disagree with that point. It doesn’t bother me. I don’t even pay attention to the LAPD.

“But sometimes you feel that there is more LAPD inside the park than fans.”

== Where’s the buzz?

In 2005, a season where the Dodgers finished at 20 games under .500, it still had the best attendance of all National League teams at 3.6 million.

The Dodger Stadium experience could sell itself if the team on the field couldn’t.

If only there was a third outfielder with some pop, dreadlocks, and the flair for the dramatic who could be added to the mix.

There’s no Eric Gagne to wait around for to save a game each night. Not even Jonathan Broxton, shelved with an injury, has been able to match it.

Clayton Kershaw? Here’s something to make your head wobble — not even his bobblehead night was close to the automatic sellouts that this promotion used to be.

The Kershaw giveaway drew only 42,138 on Tuesday May 17. That’s easily the smallest Dodgers home crowd for a bobblehead night since the very first one – a Tommy Lasorda statue in April, 2001 had just 34,000, well before the novelty caught on.

== The Purple and Gold:

The four smallest Dodger Stadium crowds this season have been on days when the Lakers had playoff games going head-to-head.

The worst was on a Sunday afternoon, April 17, against St. Louis – which ended with a Kemp walk-off homer. The paid attendance was 27,439. There were some 19,000 at Staples Center at the same time when the Lakers opened the NBA playoffs with a loss to New Orleans.

But the Lakers’ quick playoff exit – they disappeared on May 8 – should absolve them from being blamed for any more Dodger attendance damage.

== The economy:

When a family of four can’t get out of a game at Dodger Stadium without paying $226.36 for tickets, hot dogs, drinks and a souvenir – that, according to the latest Team Marketing Research project that determines the Fan Cost Index – how’s that going to fly?

The Dodgers rank No. 7 among all MLB teams in this matrix, above the league average of $197.35. The Angels are the fourth-best deal at $129.50 – about $100 less a game than the Dodgers.

Here is the Team Marketing Research annual project on determining the Fan Cost Index (linked here).

Mike Schwartz of Redondo Beach, a Kings’ season-seat holder and lifelong Dodgers fans who only attended a few games a season, decided recently to actually invest in a Dodgers season-seat package.

The new Dodger promotion package of games that involve all the major give-away nights at $12 a ticket “was just the incentive I needed to place my order,” he said.

Schwartz, who usually attends the games with his wife, has this perspective on the situation:

“Despite the tragedy that took place on opening day, I could see why fans would shy away from attendance. I had my concerns or my safety as well — until I attended my first game. The reality is that I’ve never felt safer at a Dodger game in the 20-plus I’ve been a fan.

“It is sad to see the attendance hit record lows. I’m not saying that McCourt is to blame for the current state of things. But if a change in leadership turns out to be just what this team needs right now, then I’m all for it.”

Our favorite excerpt so far from “Those Guys Have All The Fun: Inside the World of ESPN” by Jim Miller and Tom Shales ($27, Little, Brown & Co., 784 pages), on the hiring of Jim Rome to help the launch of ESPN2 in 1993:

== John Lack (a former vice president):

“In looking for elements for ESPN2, I wanted a good sports talk show aimed at a younger audience. . . . (ESPN) had Roy Firestone, who did interviews, but it was kind of bland stuff. So we looked around for a talk-show guy and the best ones are on the radio. On the West Coast, there was a guy named Jim Rome who had a hot sports talk show from San Diego that was just about to be syndicated on radio. . . I liked him a lot. He was brash and young and his dream was to be on some place like ESPN. He wasn’t a great TV personality at the time – he was kind of awkward – but he had a great voice, a great mind and he had the respect early of the trash-talking black and Hispanic audience. I thought he was good-looking enough to be an eventual star on television. So I told (executive editor John) Walsh . . . (and) he looked at tapes and went gaga; he thought this was going to be Waterloo, and he was going to fight this one because he thought it flew in the face of the journalistic ethics of ESPN. I kept saying, ‘It’s not about journalism, it’s about young people.’ He didn’t buy any of that psychological (bleep). All he cared about was, ‘This guy is too controversial and I don’t think that he’s smart enough.’
“(After another meeting, Walsh) says, ‘You’re going to ruin the journalistic integrity of this network, which we’ve built up all these years. We’re finally getting to a point where we are the real deal in sports journalism and this guy’s going to blow it all in a week on the air.’ . . . (Walsh eventually proclaims): ‘If Rome comes here, and Lack has the right to do that, then I’m quitting.”

== John Walsh:

“I never threatened to quit on the basis of any one decision. Throughout my career, I have always tried to make sure that I agreed with the vision, spirit and collegiality of whatever enterprise I was involved with, and if I didn’t, that became my breaking point. I doubted Lack’s vision, style and experience. I, along with many of my colleagues at the time, knew he wasn’t right for the company in so many ways, even though from time to time he would have a good thought or recommend a winning person.”

== David Zucker, VP of programming:

“Was there contentiousness between Walsh and Lack? Of course. There was contentiousness between Lack and everybody. Lack is a brilliant, smart, creative guy, but just a loose cannon — a bull in a china shop. I don’t know that he ever understood ESPN the way the old guard did.”

Looking back on all that: Lack was executive VP of marketing and programming at ESPN for just three years – 1992-’95.

Rome hosted “Talk2” on ESPN2 from 1993-’98, went to Fox, came back to ESPN in 2003, and since ’05 has been on ESPN with a five-days-a-week “Jim Rome Is Burning” show.

Walsh remains as ESPN’s Executive Vice President and Executive Editor since joining the network in 1998.

KXTG-FM (95.5 The Game), the radio home in Portand to the NBA’s Trail Blazers, the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, the MLS’ Timbers and the University of Oregon, will give L.A.-based Dave Smith and Mychal Thompson a on-air tryout this week as a possible morning-slot replacement for the syndicated Jim Rome show.

KXTG is a Fox Sports Radio affiliate, but it has dropped now most of the lineup that is heard in the L.A. market — Steve Hartman and Pat O’Brien, Petros Papadakis and Matt “Money” Smith, Tony Bruno and, earlier this month, Rome.

To fill the 10 a.m. to noon slot the station has been trying out several replacements. Smith and Thompson, who calls Lakers games for KSPN-AM (710) but was recently dropped from their talk-show lineup, will be on the air Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (station website linked here).

Meanwhile, the station will change locations to 750-AM, which has a wider saturation for its signal, on Thursday.

Smith, aka “The Sports God” and a former No. 1 pick on the Daily News annual best and worst of the L.A. sports talk show host poll, continues to write at his website (linked here).

More on Thompson, the former No. 1 overall pick of the Portland Trail Blazers before he came to the Lakers, from the Portland Tribune (linked here).

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